Jon Gildea - July 2015

Posted on Friday 31st of July 2015.

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Testing times make you stronger

t's been a tough run for me over the last month or so and putting a blog together has been hard, particularly mentally while I have been trying to recover from a virus. I am generally a cup half full person, so writing about things not going my way is hard for me.

In an ideal world you would like to just steadily improve, but it doesn't always work out like that with cycling and fitness. It looks like a virus latched on to me at the Swiss World Cup which not only affected my performances there, but has meant I have had to take my foot of the gas ever since. My resting heart rate (main gauge of wellness) is finally back to normal for the first time today, which is a huge relief. Although I have been riding over the period while I haven't been well, I haven't been able to train properly or race which has been hugely frustrating. The message from my coaches and doctor has been to ride steady keeping my heart rate and power very low, which should keep my fitness from dropping too much whilst not making it too hard for my body to recover from the virus. All in all I have been under the weather for around a month, but my plan is to start again with the training steadily and build up to racing in the coming weeks when I am back to full fitness.

I will unfortunately be missing the world championships in Switzerland at the end July, which you can imagine is a big disappointment for me. However I still have a great focus with plenty of time and a big training block for the South Africa World Cup in September. I have also been told that I will be back racing on the track towards the end of the year which is great news, with an international (Rio points scoring) race in Newport in November. British Cycling have been fantastic over the last few weeks while I haven't been well, pulling out all of the resources to both help me get well and at the same time put a longer term plan in place which takes me all the way up to Rio.

Racing internationally for the British Cycling Team is always a great experience and the team spirit is better than ever. Although my progress has been stumped over the last month, what I have to do to progress to the level I need to be is now much clearer, so there are definitely plenty of positives to work with. I am treating this last month as a blip and making sure that I do everything I can to continue my progress towards Rio.